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With the release of iText 7, some part of the first edition of the book "ZUGFeRD: The Future of Invoicing" became obsolete. In the meantime, we have been busy updating the content to iText 7 code and including new add-ons such as pdfHTML. Today, ZUGFeRD is still a very important standard for invoicing, that makes processing invoices much easier by combining EDI standards (Electronic Data Interchange, e.g. Cross Industry Invoice or CII) with the PDF/A-3 standard. The human-oriented representation using PDF and the machine-oriented EDI information stored within the PDF are the key strengths of...

How do I make sure my software complies with AGPL: How can I use iText for free? iText is available under the open source license, AGPL as well as a commercial license. If you purchase a commercial license, you can keep your source code to yourself allowing you to retain your IP. If you use the AGPL version, you need to release your source code free of charge. But what does that really mean in practical terms? One of our developers, created a short post to explain where and how to publish your source code to comply with AGPL. Where and how to publish Free Software - by Amedee...

Introduction iText 7's new add-on pdfHTML is a tool that aims to greatly simplify HTML to PDF conversion in Java or .NET. This is a straightforward and uniform use case, so many users will get satisfactory results with the one-line code sample below. For more complex usage, you may need to provide some configuration to pdfHTML. In this post, I will attempt to explain why you may need to use the config options, and how to use them. Basics The default way to use pdfHTML is either one of two basic one-line code samples: HtmlConverter.convertToPdf(new File("input.html"), new...

pdfXfa is the successor to XFA Worker. It allows you to process and finalize dynamic forms by automating form filling and later flattening for easy use and security. pdfXFA offers all of the same functionality as XFA Worker, but also offers a convenient API. To get started with pdfXFA, read on! Load your License Key Before we begin we'll need to load the license file. This is done using our license key library. Make sure to use version 2 and higher. These version are meant to be used in tandem with iText 7 products, while versions 1.x.y are meant to be used with iText 5. LicenseKey....

Last week, we created a poll on Twitter , asking you which platform you prefer: The Java platform, The .NET platform, or Another platform These were the results: It seems that the Java platform is the most popular among developers who follow us on Twitter: half of them prefer the Java platform. Looking at the questions posted on StackOverflow, I would have guessed that the numbers would be more in balance, because it feels as if there are about as many questions about iText for Java as there are as about iText for C#. Maybe we...

pdfDebug is an add on component that is available for iText 7. Its basic function is to allow a programmer to see inside of a PDF while it is being created. This allows for advanced debugging on programs that use iText to create or manipulate PDFs. Interested? Let’s take a look at how it works with an example. To start, we created a simple program whose goal is to create a pdf that has four pages, with one phrase on each page. Page 1: Hello World, Page 2: Hello People, Page 3: Hello Everyone. In addition, we want the headers Item 1, Item 2, or Item 3 depending on the page which it appears on...

Eurostaff, a recruitment specialist, recently conducted an interview with iText founder and CSO Bruno Lowagie . In it, Bruno explains the best practices for developers who pull code snippets from StackOverflow to use in their own projects. What are the legal ramifications? How do you best attribute your source? From the interview: "The Stack Exchange Network interprets ‘attribution’ in a fantastically complicated way, written in legalese that even educated people have trouble...

While you’re making PDF files and an error occurs, tracing where the problem is can be hard. That’s why we have developed the pdfDebug add-on for iText 7. It allows you to view your PDF file’s internal content structure, content streams and allows you to browse the document in a logical manner – as it is being created. This practical tool is the first of its kind for PDF. What's even better: We're offering the add-on free of charge through the Eclipse Marketplace so you...

In a long interview with OpenSourceForU, India's prime press portal on all matters open source, the magazine sat down with iText founder and strategist Bruno Lowagie. In the interview, he talks about the past and future of iText and PDF and shares his wisdom about monetizing open source projects in the smartest way. You can read the entire interview by clicking through here , but here's already an excerpt of Bruno's words: "India can play a vital role in expanding the open source...

Many of you are aware that iText Software provides dedicated support to its paying customers. However, we also have a very large user base that complies with the AGPL license. Since they don't pay for technical support, they have to rely on their own debugging skills and, as a fallback channel, on Stack Overflow to solve their iText problems. Those who have stared into the abyss of iText 5's...